Monthly Archives: August 2018

Time Capsule : Battle of Saragarhi (1897)

Fought on September 12, 1897, between the British Indian Army and Afghan tribesmen, the Battle of Saragarhi is one of the most legendary battles in Indian military history. A heroic band of 21 Sikh soldiers defended the outpost of Saragarhi, located 40 miles from the British garrison at Kohat (present-day Pakistan). Set against the backdrop of the North-West Frontier, the battle is a testament to the fierce resilience and grit of the Sikh soldiers.

Havildar Ishar Singh led a detachment of 21 Sikh soldiers from 36 Sikh Regiment. On September 12, 1897, they were besieged by a force of about 10,000 Afghan tribesmen, marching ahead with a resolve to disrupt British communication lines.

Despite being heavily outnumbered and facing overwhelming odds, the Sikh soldiers defended Saragarhi with unparalleled bravery. They fought valiantly for hours, countering numerous attacks and inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. Their resistance was so fierce that it slowed the Afghan advance, allowing time for reinforcements to arrive.

In the end, all 21 Sikh soldiers were killed, but their heroic sacrifice inspired the Indian Army and became a symbol of courage and determination. Their last stand continues to be remembered and honoured as one of the most remarkable acts of gallantry in military history.

The Battle of Saragarhi continues to be celebrated as a testament to the indomitable spirit of the Indian soldiers. It is a reminder of the sacrifices made by those who fought for their country, a reflection upon the valiant path few have the courage to tread and the value of perseverance amid heavy odds.

Saluting Brave Soldiers of SIKH Regiment at Saragarhi . 21 Soldiers of 31 SIKH Regiment fought thousands of Afghans and laid down their lives . What a gesture by BRITISH Army .

Watching the heroes of the Paris Paralympics, a tribute to Lt Gen PS Joshi, who converted his adversity into strength

At the Paris Paralympics men’s shot put F57 category event, Havildar Hokato Hotozhe Sema intuitively raised his arms in celebration after his bronze medal throw. The 40-year-old Sumi Naga soldier had lost his left leg in an IED blast at Kupwara in 2002. Fitting him with a replacement prosthetic leg, his surgeon at the Artificial Limb Centre, Kirkee, noting his superb upper body fitness, encouraged him to pick up shot put. In no time, the paralympics centre at Bombay Engineer Group, Kirkee, roped in the plucky Sema.

That’s when a wave of halcyon recall overtook me. It was 1978. A rookie Captain, I was doing a key career course at Mhow. My ‘buddy’ was Capt Bikram Singh, a Sikh Light Infantry officer and later Army Chief. We were doing a mountain warfare exercise in the wooded Malwa plateau. Our Directing Staff was Lt Col PS Joshi. He was tough, quiet and clued in with a no-nonsense but not unpleasant veneer.

We climbed up a steep incline with Col Pankaj teaching, questioning and assessing. We were scrambling for the last stand when he slipped and fell. ‘Stay away,’ he commanded Bikram and me, who were the closest. We watched with pride as the Colonel crawled down the slope on his knees to reach his separated Kirkee prosthetic, its retaining leather straps broken.

The Cavalry thinks on its feet. In seconds, I’d whipped off my boot laces, seeking silent permission to do jugaad. Col Joshi smiled his approval. We’d become friends for life without my ever becoming familiar with him. Gentlemen keep it simple and lasting.

Lt Gen Pankaj Shivram Joshi was in the visual spectrum a double-amputee ‘handicapped’ officer. In the mental and physical space, however, he converted adversity into victory by making ‘Invictus’ his anthem — and won. ‘Invictus’ is a Victorian-era poem, the word meaning ‘unconquerable’ in Latin. It was written by William Ernest Henley, an amputee at 16, with doctors telling him that a double amputation was inevitable — till Henley decided that gangrene and death weren’t his destiny, but rather the productive life he forged for himself. He did, however, make a wry concession: “I am afraid my marching days are over.”

Pankaj did one better. An NDA entry, he was commissioned into 1/11 Gorkha Rifles in 1962, joining his unit in Ladakh where the Gorkhas had just earned ‘Battle Honour’ Chushul. They showed their pluck against the Chinese on Gurung Hill despite suffering grievous losses. Across the Pangong Tso, Maj Dhan Singh Thapa had, some time earlier, earned his Param Vir Chakra by pulling out his khukri though seriously wounded when there was no ammunition left — huge reminders to 2/Lt Pankaj on his unit’s grit, guts and never-say-die ethos.

Pankaj took part in the 1965 Indo-Pak war in the Chhamb sector. During a mine-clearing operation, when heavy snowfall had dislocated landmines at Nathu La in 1967 post the near-war skirmish with PLA, doctors amputated his shattered legs: the right leg below the knee and the left at the calf.

Pankaj made this adversity his strength by resuming, despite prosthetics, all professional, academic and sports activities like his peers. 1/11 Gorkhas was reborn as 3 Mechanised Infantry, equip-ped with Topaz APC and later the Russian combat vehicle BMP-1. It had earned fame in the 1973 Yom Kippur war by giving the Egyptians an edge over the Israelis.

Unsurprisingly, Pankaj was selected to command it. His wife Prabha Devi recalls with pride: “He told his men he was back after 14 years the way Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya after exile.” This was the time the Army took to reconcile with the reality that amputation was a service reality which could be negotiated with grit and resolve.

Pankaj went on to command an armoured brigade, an armoured division and a pivot corps on the IB. He was to later become Army Commander, Central Command, and India’s first Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff.

A Russian language expert, he had done two top flight courses in America, had been an Instructor and Commandant at the College of Combat, Mhow. He was also an Instructor at the Staff College. He had his feet firmly anchored in reality. All he wanted was a fierce desire not to be helped or pitied. ‘I can do all any person can,’ he’d say, ‘I need your unqualified acceptance that I am your equal if a trifle different.’ His ‘Invictus’ spirit burgeoned till the bell tolled for him on July 1, 2009.

As Henley captures in ‘Invictus’:

“In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

A key US diplomat, Donald Lu, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs at the US State Department, is scheduled to meet with Indian officials from the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry…

A key US diplomat, Donald Lu, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs at the US State Department, is scheduled to meet with Indian officials from the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Defence in New Delhi on Monday, September 16. This visit is for the inter-sessional meeting of the US-India 2+2 dialogue, as confirmed by MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.

Tejas engine delay likely to be flagged

The dialogue will focus on identifying opportunities to enhance the US-India bilateral partnership, especially in defence cooperation, and expand collaboration in the Indo-Pacific region. India is expected to address issues such as delays in the supply of F404 engines for the indigenous Tejas fighter jet and pending military technology tie-ups.

The 2+2 dialogue typically involves the participation of India’s External Affairs Minister and Defence Minister alongside their US counterparts. However, this inter-sessional meeting is at the Joint Secretary level and will lay the groundwork for discussions at the higher ministerial level. Jedidiah P Royal, US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, will also participate in the meeting.

The dialogue will focus on identifying opportunities to enhance the US-India bilateral partnership, especially in defence cooperation, and expand collaboration in the Indo-Pacific region. India is expected to address issues such as delays in the supply of F404 engines for the indigenous Tejas fighter jet and pending military technology tie-ups.

In addition to these meetings, Donald Lu on Friday attended the ‘Ideas Summit Conference’ hosted by the US-India Business Council (USIBC), where discussions centered on enhancing US-India business and strategic partnerships. The USIBC described his session on X as a “wonderful and beneficial discussion” with its Global Board members.

Thieves targeted the house of a woman army officer (Major), decamping with Rs 35,000 in cash, 3.5 tolas of gold jewellery and some silver items. The incident occurred at Chaudhary Colony here. Her husband, Gurvinder Singh (a retired Army officer)…

Thieves targeted the house of a woman army officer (Major), decamping with Rs 35,000 in cash, 3.5 tolas of gold jewellery and some silver items. The incident occurred at Chaudhary Colony here.

Her husband, Gurvinder Singh (a retired Army officer) said he, along with his wife, stays in Udhampur, J&K. Their house was lying locked. When he returned home on September 10, he found locks broken and the house ransacked. He checked the CCTV footage and found images of thieves. Gurvinder criticised the police for their slow response in the case. A case has been registered.

Acting on a tip-off, a joint search operation is launched by the police and Army in the Pathanateer area near Gursai Top in Mendhar sub-division

An encounter broke out in a remote village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district when security forces launched a cordon and search operation following information about the presence of terrorists, an official said on Sunday.

Acting on a tip-off, a joint search operation was launched by the police and Army in the Pathanateer area near Gursai Top in Mendhar sub-division on Saturday evening, the security official said.

He said the search party came under fire from the hiding terrorists, triggering a gunfight.

Intermittent exchange of fire is on between both the sides, the official said, adding that reinforcements were rushed to the area and further details are awaited.

The events of 9/11 opened a new chapter in global affairs, wherein the ‘war on terror’ became the new buzzword to invade nation-states that were tyrannical in their disposition.

Manish Tewari

DURING a recent dialogue on ‘A Global Order in Churn: Seeking Solutions’ and their implications in the contemporary strategic context, a stray reference to two books written in the early and mid-1990s prompted a think.

These books were The End of History and the Last Man (1992) by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama and The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) by Samuel P Huntington.

Fukuyama’s book was a sequel to a 1989 article that he wrote in a magazine called National Interest a couple of months before the collapse of the Berlin Wall. He argued that “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government…”

Essentially, what he argued was that the Western liberal and democratic model would be the default option of the global order in the years and decades ahead.

On the other hand, Huntington argued in his book that the epoch of ideology had reached an inflection point, and thereafter, humankind would regress into an age delineated by cultural conflict all over again. In his hypothesis, he argued that, henceforth, the primary axis of conflict would be along cultural trajectories.

He postulated that the template of diverse civilisations as the pinnacle of cultural distinctiveness would evolve into a progressively efficacious matrix in analysing both the potential for conflict and the genesis of actual conflict. In a 1993 Foreign Affairs article, he prophesised about ‘the clash of civilisations’ by submitting that “This is not to advocate the desirability of conflicts between civilisations. It is to set forth descriptive hypothesis as to what the future may be like.”

Both Fukuyama and Huntington were gazing into the crystal ball, trying to predict the ebb and flow of historical and Westphalian impulses in shaping the post-communist world order that had led to a unique situation of unipolarity in international affairs, with the US emerging as the only hegemon after the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, the collapse of its Eastern European satellite states that brought about an end to ‘bloc politics’ that had characterised the post-World War II global milieu.

Almost three decades later, how did both these seminal treatises measure up in predicting the train of global events since their publication in the 1990s. This becomes especially relevant at a point in time when, after the end of World War II, humankind is witness to a three-continent conflict playing itself out concurrently. These battles are the Russia-Ukraine War that began in February 2022, the Israel-Hamas conflict that broke out in October last year and the rise of China over the past three decades that has attained portentous overtones in large parts of the world beyond the immediate Chinese realms in North Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia.

Rewinding to September 11, 2001, when semi-state actors put the only omnipresent hyper power in the world, the US, on notice by crashing passenger-filled jet liners into the World Trade Centre, liberal democracy certainly has not emerged as the global choice.

The events of 9/11 opened a new chapter in global affairs, wherein the ‘war on terror’ became the new buzzword to invade nation-states that were tyrannical in their disposition but by no stretch of imagination directly involved in the events that took place on that tragic September morning in New York. The invasion of the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, codenamed Operation Enduring Freedom, on October 7, 2001, was not a clash of civilisations but a tactical attempt to get even with the masterminds of 9/11, namely the Osama bin Laden-led Al-Qaeda that had found sanctuary in Afghanistan.

The events in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021 demonstrate that despite the US spending $2.3 trillion on the war there (almost $300 million a day), the country did not turn into a democratic haven for the Afghans. In fact, Afghanistan was the classical test case for the Fukuyama thesis, courtesy the direct involvement of the US for over 20 years. Neither was it a clash of civilisations, for if that had been the case, the US would not have got into negotiations with the same Taliban it had ousted 20 years ago. The talks resulted in the Doha Agreement of February 29, 2020, paving the way for the handing back of Afghanistan to the Taliban on August 15, 2021, in a rather ignominious manner. It was a classical raison d’état at play.

Similarly, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 under the subterfuge of finding non-existent weapons of mass destruction did not turn Iraq into a democratic utopia but unleashed such tectonic forces across West Asia that continue to rise like apparitions after staying buried for over a century, after the reordering of the Greater Middle East in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1919. Neither was the invasion of Iraq a clash of civilisations, for if that had been the case, the Anglo-Saxon civilisation would not have given up after expending $3 trillion and 3,00,000 dead, the overwhelming bulk of them Iraqi civilians. It was again raison d’état at play.

Similarly, the invasion of Libya in 2011 under the rubric of Right to Protect (R2P) has neither turned Libya into a democratic paradise, nor was it a clash of civilisations by any stretch of imagination. The impulse was to get rid of Col Muammar Gaddafi’s despotic regime, as the Iraq invasion was to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Libya, unfortunately, has been a paragon of instability for the past 13 years.

Likewise, after the collapse of communism in the 1990s, China did not become democratic, nor is its ominous rise a civilisational struggle with the other cultures. It is again purely driven by what China perceives as its national interest.

The affairs of people and nations are still governed by two fundamental precepts, both dating back to the 17th century. The first was coined by Cardinal Richelieu, namely raison d’état, that each nation acts in its best national interest and the second — the doctrine of balance of power conceptualised by Hugo Grotius and first put into practice by William of Orange, later King

William III of England.

Two Army personnel were killed and two others injured in an encounter with terrorists in the Chatroo area of Kishtwar district on Friday evening. The incident comes on the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to adjoining Doda district,…

Two Army personnel were killed and two others injured in an encounter with terrorists in the Chatroo area of Kishtwar district on Friday evening.

The incident comes on the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to adjoining Doda district, where he is scheduled to address a public rally on Saturday.

The gunfight broke out when a joint team of the Army and police, acting on a tip-off, launched a search operation in Chatroo, sources said. The two soldiers who were killed in action have been identified as Naib Subedar Vipan Kumar and Sepoy Arvind Singh.

In an initial statement, Jammu-based White Knight Corps said, “Based on intelligence inputs, a joint operation with the J&K Police was launched at Chatroo in Kishtwar. A contact was established with terrorists at 3.30 pm. In the ensuing firefight, four Army personnel have been injured. The operation is on.” Later, two of them succumbed to their injuries. The police said, “An exchange of fire has taken place between security forces and hiding terrorists at the Pingnal Dugadda forest area.”

The sources said at least two or three terrorists were present in the forest area where the encounter took place. The security forces believe the ultras were equipped with at least one M-4 carbine and steel bullets. Kishtwar, Doda and Ramban in the Jammu region are set to vote on September 18.

Family members, relatives and members of various organisations bid an emotional adieu to Sikh Light Infantry jawan Subedar Jasvir Singh (42) at Barmi, his native village, in Ludhiana district on Friday. Jasvir had succumbed to a cardiac arrest on Wednesday…

Family members, relatives and members of various organisations bid an emotional adieu to Sikh Light Infantry jawan Subedar Jasvir Singh (42) at Barmi, his native village, in Ludhiana district on Friday. Jasvir had succumbed to a cardiac arrest on Wednesday at Fatehpur in UP.

A team of BSF jawans from 103 Infantry TA Sikh Light, placed wreaths on the body of the deceased covered in Tricolour and accorded state honours to the jawan before cremation. MLA Hakam Singh Thekedar, SDM Beant Singh Sidhu and DSP Rachhpal Singh Dhindsa also placed wreaths on the jawan’s body to pay tributes on behalf of the Punjab Government.

Singh is survived by his widow Jaspreet Kaur, besides a son, Manjot Singh (13) and a daughter, Gurnimrat Kaur (2).

Also dismissed from service

A soldier who shot dead his four colleagues at the high-security Bathinda military station on April 12, 2023, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a military general court martial. He has also been dismissed from the service.
Convict Desai Mohan and victims Sagar Banne, Kamlesh R Santosh, Nagaral and Yogesh Kumar J were from the 80 Medium Regiment of artillery.
Desai Mohan killed his four colleagues while they were asleep. Following the incident, all entry and exit points of the cantonment were sealed and a search operation was launched to nab the accused. A joint investigation into the incident was initiated by the military and the police.
The Bathinda police found 19 cartridges at the site of the incident. Desai Mohan was found guilty not only of murder but also of stealing weapons and ammunition.
The general court martial, led by Colonel S Duseja, has been hearing the case since January. Under the Army Act, 1925, the military took over the case, removing it from the civil court’s purview. Now, Desai Mohan has been sentenced to life imprisonment and dismissed from the job.
The findings and the sentence announced by the GCM on Saturday are subject to vetting by the higher Army authorities, sources said.
The jawan was represented by two advocates, Rajesh Sharma and Navjinder Singh, at the court martial, while the prosecution was represented by Brig NK Ohri (Retd).
During the investigation, Desai told the police that he was being regularly sodomised and abused by those four soldiers. Ashamed and humiliated, he drew a rifle and shot them dead.

Tribune News Service Bathinda, August 10 General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C), Sapta Shakti Command, Lt Gen Manjinder Singh visited the Bathinda military station from August 8 to 10. He was briefed on the operational preparedness, training activities, logistics and administrative aspects…

Tribune News Service

Bathinda,

General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C), Sapta Shakti Command, Lt Gen Manjinder Singh visited the Bathinda military station from August 8 to 10.

He was briefed on the operational preparedness, training activities, logistics and administrative aspects of Chetak Corps.

The Army Commander visited training facilities in the station and appreciated the high commitment and professionalism of all ranks. He stressed on the need of task-oriented and realistic training and validation, with focus on empowering the units with cutting-edge technologies.

Various endeavours being undertaken by different formations for technology absorption, as part of the Indian Army’s “Year of Tech Absorption” initiative were also showcased.

Commending the initiatives, he highlighted the importance of self-reliance and the need to make more efforts to facilitate “Atmanirbhar Bharat”. He accentuated that all ranks must keep themselves up-to-date with the latest trends and technological advancement, emerging cyber threats and be able to act as first responders to any threat, online or offline.

The Army Commander also inspected the station and was shown several facilities available.

Highly appreciative of these initiatives, he directed for creation of more facilities for inclusive social bonding and overall development of the station, emphasising the need of constant monitoring of development projects to ensure quality and timely completion.

The Army Commander appreciated the high standards of combat readiness of the Corps and exhorted all ranks to continue to strive for excellence and be prepared to efficiently meet challenges of modern warfare.